MATLAB-Based Simulation of Bioturbation, Part 2

Bioturbation (or benthic mixing) causes significant distortions in marine stable isotope signals and other palaeoceanographic records. In an earlier post I introduced a MATLAB-based model to study the effect of bioturbation on isotopic signals from stratigraphic carriers such as foraminifera. This post will demonstrate how to create a publishable figure showing the uppermost layers of a sediment sequence affected by bioturbation. The following posts will introduce MATLAB-based animations of the benthic mixing.

The classic way to describe benthic mixing or bioturbation on the deep-sea floor is to postulate a mixed layer of a specific thickness M (marked by yellow shading, typically between M=0 and M=20 cm, global average about M=8 cm), resting on top of a sediment pile that is not influenced by benthic activity (e.g. Berger and Heath, 1968). Many studies on the distribution of high-resolution 14C data series (marked by blue squares) in box core profiles have shown instantaneous mixing within such a layer and suggest that this model describes the process of bioturbation in the deep-sea sediments sufficiently accurately, at least on radiocarbon time scales. Here is a script to create a graphics similar to Figure 2 of my paper published in Paleoceanography (Trauth et al., 1997) which uses 14C data of Buffoni et al. (1992), showing the uppermost layers of a sediment sequence affected by bioturbation.

About me

I am a geoscientist, apl. professor of paleoclimate dynamics at the University of Potsdam. I have been using MATLAB since late 1992, especially for the analysis of paleoclimatic series. Please visit my university webpage http://martinhtrauth.de